Consultation: MCS Age 17 Survey

CLS is seeking input into the content of the Age 17 Survey of the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), scheduled for 2018. Age 17 marks a major transition in the cohort members’ lives and has the potential to be a particularly important and illuminating stage of the study.

Your expertise will help us produce a high quality survey that meets the needs of researchers across a range of disciplines and that has the potential to influence policy.

We are asking academics, policy makers and other stakeholders to put forward their suggestions for content and questions by Friday 11^th September 2015. We would also like to invite you to join us at the MCS7 consultative conference on Monday 16^th November 2015. Registration will open on Monday 14^th September 2015.

How to contribute to the consultation

We have organised the survey content into three key themes, with a scientific advisory group responsible for reviewing and prioritising your proposals, and presenting a summary for debate at the consultative conference. Please complete the MCS7 topic and instrument proposal form and email it to Emma Nixon by Friday 11^th September 2015. Further information on the themes and the scientific advisory group can be found below.

The MCS7 scientific advisory group:

• Louise Arsenault (King’s College, London)
• Paul Gregg (University of Bath)
• Helen Sweeting (University of Glasgow)
• Chris Taylor (Cardiff University)
• Russell Viner (UCL Institute of Child Health)

The PI of the MCS is Professor Emla Fitzsimons.

The Age 17 scientific consultation contains three broad themes:

1. Activities and daily life: The behaviour of young adults and the activities they are engaged in (such as education, training, work, relationships, risky behaviours and social media, exercise/diet and cultural participation) will be important to measure well. For the first time diverging activities (not just school) will be crucial to capture
2. Socio-emotional development: Having well-validated, state-of-the-art measures of non-cognitive/socio-emotional  characteristics (such as personality, motivation, decision-making and mental health and wellbeing) is critical
3. Cognitive development: Having objectively measured, well-validated measures of cognition covering domains (such as crystallised skills, fluid intelligence, numeracy and executive function) is vital

The questionnaire will cover the content for the 60-minute face-to-face interview with the cohort member. View the content covered in the MCS6 age 14 survey here.

Please also note the following in relation to the age 17 survey content:

• We will collect objective measures of physical development (height, weight, body fat)
• There is currently no funding for interviewing parents. We welcome your thoughts on the value of  interviewing parents, and any information you consider crucial to collect from them at this stage of the cohort members’ lives
• We plan to collect consent to various data linkages, suggestions as to specific linkages will be considered.

Please send your comments by Friday 11th September 2015 to:

• Emma Nixon

Provisional timetable:

• Launch consultation                                             30 June 2015
• Consultation closes                                             11 September 2015
• Scientific Consultation Meeting                            16 November 2015
• Consultation on first draft of Questionnaire         Spring/summer 2016
• Piloting                                                                  Spring/summer 2017
• Fieldwork starts                                                    January 2018
• Fieldwork ends                                                      December 2018
• Data deposit at UKDS                                           Late 2019

For more information and to keep up to date with the consultation please view the MSC7 Consultation page.